


i like the way it's been

by seeingrightly



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 05:41:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2456891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian curses when he hears the front door open, and then Yev smacks him on the collarbone with the rattle and shrieks as he sees Mickey over Ian’s shoulder, letting out a string of syllables that mostly sound like “da.” It’s the first thing close to a word Yev has said, but it’s aimless, said to anyone and anything. Mickey’d looked really pissed off the first time he saw Yev say it while Mandy was holding him, but he’s gotten over it since.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i like the way it's been

**Author's Note:**

> this is vaguely set in a nearish, stableish future that ignores what we know of season five.
> 
> title from ra ra riot's "everest".

Packing Yev up to get him out of the house is a pain in the ass. It’s different from the type of annoying it always was to get Liam out of the house when he was a baby, though. Back then, things were always getting lost by Carl or stolen by Debbie for her dolls, or they’d run out of something without realizing and have to improvise.

Now, in the Milkovich house, finding the baby shit is tricky because it’s impossible to keep track of who had the baby last. Sometimes the baby bag will be entirely packed but hidden in a corner of Svetlana and Nika’s room, or sometimes one of the other prostitutes will have left it somewhere weird like in the kitchen while babysitting, or sometimes one of Mickey’s brothers will take the car before Ian can get the bag out of it.

Ian’s got Yev on one hip, letting the kid gnaw aggressively on a plastic rattle as Ian runs around looking for the bag. Drool is getting everywhere but Ian doesn’t really notice – Mickey will get back from work soon and then they’re supposed to head over to the Gallagher house for dinner, and Mandy had Yev when _he_ got home from work earlier, but he doesn’t know who had the kid before that or where the bag might be.

Ian curses when he hears the front door open, and then Yev smacks him on the collarbone with the rattle and shrieks as he sees Mickey over Ian’s shoulder, letting out a string of syllables that mostly sound like “da.” It’s the first thing close to a word Yev has said, but it’s aimless, said to anyone and anything. Mickey’d looked really pissed off the first time he saw Yev say it while Mandy was holding him, but he’s gotten over it since.

“You have any idea where the stupid bag is?” Ian asks, running a hand through his hair as he turns around.

Mickey leans against the wall near the front door, looking amused.

“Your sister watched the kid this morning, didn’t she?” Mickey asks. “Think she dropped him off with Mandy on the way to work.”

“Ah,” Ian says, looking down at Yev, who’s still banging the rattle against his chest. “Think Fi forgot the bag over there?”

“Dadada,” Yev says, and Ian nods.

“Then I guess we’re ready to go,” he says, heading over to Mickey.

He pauses a couple steps in front of him and breathes out slowly, taking in Mickey’s slouch against the wall, the curl of his mouth, the way he reaches a hand out to rub it over Yev’s head.

“Hi,” Ian says.

“Hi,” Mickey repeats, raising his eyebrows mockingly.

Ian leans forward, wrapping his free arm around Mickey’s waist as he goes, pressing their mouths together. Mickey brings one hand up to the back of Ian’s head and lets Ian reel him in. It still overwhelms him sometimes that he gets to do this now. Ian’s smile breaks the kiss, and Mickey flinches against him when Yev smacks his shoulder with the rattle.

“Think Mandy’s been teaching him self-defense?” Mickey asks, rubbing at his shoulder and glaring at the rattle.

Ian snorts and replaces the rattle with a plastic teething toy before shoving Mickey out the door. They fall into step, and Ian switches Yev to his other hip.

“Want me to take him?” Mickey asks, something he wouldn’t have done a couple of months ago.

“Nah,” Ian says, bumping his free elbow against Mickey’s side.

Mickey nudges him back a little but lets him stay close. Ian doesn’t realize just how good he feels until they get close to the Gallagher house and he hears Frank inside, talking loudly.

“Great,” Ian huffs. “Debbie probably put out the ‘family dinner’ notice.”

Mickey looks over at Ian, rubbing at his mouth for a second.

“You wanna ditch?” he asks carefully.

“No,” Ian says, setting his jaw. “I’m not skipping anything just ‘cause Frank’s here.”

Mickey shrugs and follows him up the front steps. The door’s slightly open, probably in Frank’s wake, so Ian heads right in. On the couch, Debbie looks concerned and Carl looks bored, Liam curled up between them. Lip’s girlfriend is perched on the armchair, her hands folded in her lap and her eyebrows raised, and Kev and Vee are rubbernecking from the kitchen with the twins.

Fiona and Lip are in the doorway to the kitchen, her with her hands on her hips and him with his arms crossed, and Frank is a few feet away from Ian with his arms spread wide, talking and talking.

“Nobody invites me to _anything_ ,” Frank says, swinging an arm back and nearly whacking Mickey, who dodges it and glares.

Lip raises his eyebrows at Ian, who leans against the wall near the steps where he should be out of the line of fire. Mickey hovers next to him, like he’ll jump in the middle if he needs to, and Ian hides a smile against the top of Yev’s head for a second as he pretends to adjust his grip.

“Nobody told me when little Debbie had a project in the science fair, _did_ they,” Frank says, pointing and staggering a little with it.

“I told you four times, actually,” Fiona says, and at the same time Debbie mutters, “I’m not _little_.”

“Do you know who told me that Carl here managed not to get detention for a whole month?” Frank asks, putting his hand on top of Carl’s head, but Carl shrugs him off quickly. “Kate told me, down at the Alibi. _Kate_ knows that I care about my children.”

“Didn’t that turn out to be a fluke anyway? They counted wrong or some shit?” Lip asks, and Carl flips him off.

“And how did I find out that Liam, my youngest son, my last child, was starting pre-school?” Frank asks. “Who told me that? Not any of you, no sir.”

He points with one finger, swinging it around until he spots Ian and Yev and Mickey, and then he jumps a little, but he recovers quickly, jumping right back into it.

“And no one _ever_ thinks to tell me when _my_ grandson is going to be visiting _my_ house,” Frank crows, raising his arms above his head for a moment.

Ian freezes up but he tries not to show it, doing his best not to look over at Mickey, keeping his eyes on Frank’s gesturing.

“No one thinks I’d like to –”

“Jesus, Frank,” Lip says, “the kid’s here all the fuckin’ time. _You’re_ not, ‘cause it’s not your house.”

“This is _my_ house,” Frank growls, pointing at Lip and taking a step toward him, but Fiona grabs him arm and shoves him back toward the door.

“Speech is over,” she says loudly. “Shut up or get out.”

Lip helps her crowd Frank back toward the door, and Ian glances over at Mickey. He’s watching Frank, still standing sort of in front of Ian and Yev, but the line of his shoulders is a little tighter than it was before.

They haven’t really talked about the situation with Yev, just slipped into a system that works. Fiona and Lip have tried to talk to Ian about it but he brushed them off, and when Mandy tried, she’d said Mickey wouldn’t talk about it either. But things have been working; they haven’t talked about it and it’s been fine.

Fiona slams the door shut once Frank is on the other side of it, and she locks it with a flourish.

“Yo, Kev, lock the back door,” Lip calls as he comes back into the living room.

“Alright, time to eat,” Fiona says cheerily, poking at the kids on the couch until they move into the kitchen, Amanda following them.

Mickey moves toward the kitchen without looking at Ian, and Lip hangs back, studying Ian blandly.

“Congrats,” Lip says. “Didn’t know I was an uncle. Suspected it, but I wasn’t sure.”

He pauses, puts his hands in his pockets, still staring at Ian.

“What about you?” he asks. “You know you’re a dad?”

“Fuck you,” Ian says, shifting Yev to his other hip and not looking into the kitchen.

“You’re gonna have to talk to somebody about it at some point,” Lip says. “Preferably at least one of the kid’s other parents.”

He looks away from Ian for a minute.

“Think he’s freaking out?” he asks quietly.

“Probably,” Ian says.

“You freaking out?”

“Only ‘cause he probably is,” Ian says with a shrug. “I’m – I mean, I’m not freaking out about it. I just – don’t want _him_ to.”

Lip nods, looking at him seriously for a moment, before clapping him on the shoulder.

“You gotta talk to him, man,” he says, heading into the kitchen.

Ian sighs before following him. He plops Yev onto Debbie’s lap, glancing quickly at Mickey, who’s talking to Carl. He looks distracted.

“Fi, you seen the baby bag?” Ian asks.

“Oh, shit!” she says. “Vee, did I leave it at your place this mornin’?”

“Fuck if I know,” Vee replies, glancing up from the baby on her lap. “You can go check.”

“I got it,” Ian says, gesturing for Fiona to stay where she is.

He turns and heads out the front door, making sure that Frank isn’t around before he closes the door behind him and heads over to Vee and Kev’s place. The baby bag is on their kitchen table, and everything’s inside of it, so he pulls the strap over his shoulder and heads back out. He’s surprised to see Mickey standing on the front steps of the Gallagher house, smoking and staring out across the street.

Mickey doesn’t really look at him as he comes up the front walk, stopping at the foot of the stairs. After a second, Ian holds his hand out, and Mickey passes the cigarette to him.

He waits a couple of seconds, and then as he’s handing the cigarette back he decides to just go for it.

“Are you freaking out?” he asks.

“Fuck you,” Mickey says immediately. “Are you?”

He’s got his shoulders up around his ears and he’s shifting on the step, looking somewhere over Ian’s head. Ian weighs his options.

“I’m not freaking out,” he says slowly.

Mickey squints down at him, rubbing at his lip with his thumb.

“You don’t look like you’re not freaking out,” he says suspiciously, and Ian laughs a little and throws his arms up.

“Okay, Mickey,” he says. “What he said doesn’t freak me out. You freaking out freaks me out.”

Mickey looks at him for another few seconds and then huffs.

“This is fuckin’ stupid,” he mutters.

“Mickey, are you freaking out?” Ian asks again, loudly, gesturing for Mickey to answer him.

Mickey rolls his eyes and curls his lip and Ian braces himself for the stupid answer he’s about to get.

“You freaking out freaks me out,” Mickey parrots, but he’s not looking at Ian, biting his lip.

He means it.

“So, to clarify,” Ian says, holding both of his hands up in a placating gesture, “I’m not freaking out and you’re not freaking out. About the idea of Yev being – being my kid. We’re just freaking out because we think the other person is freaking out.”

Mickey stares at him for a moment.

“This is fuckin’ stupid,” he says again.

“So we’re good, then,” Ian says, nodding to himself. “About Yev… being my kid.”

He blinks, and then startles when Mickey comes down to the step right above him, a funny look on his face.

“Ian,” he says slowly. “This ain’t news.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never – I’ve never _said_ it.”

Mickey grabs his shoulder and shakes it a little, and Ian looks right at him.

“Guess what?” Mickey says.

“What?” Ian asks blankly.

“You’re a dad, fuckface,” Mickey says, and Ian laughs, and then he punches Mickey on the arm, and then he grabs both sides of his head and pulls him forward, kissing him hard and accidentally knocking their foreheads together a little.

“Jesus,” Mickey mutters when they pull apart. “I guess Frank’s good for something, huh?”

“Nah,” Ian says, pushing at Mickey until he heads back up the stairs. “I would’ve figured it out eventually.”

Mickey laughs.

“When, on the kid’s tenth birthday? Maybe his eighteenth?”

Ian shoves the baby bag at Mickey as they head inside.

“Go feed your kid,” he says.

Mickey shoves the bag back at him.

“Fuck no,” he says, smirking. “You go feed _your_ kid.”

Ian shoulders the bag and sighs dramatically.

“Fine,” he huffs, and he knows it’s the least convincing he’s ever been.

“You two are fuckin’ gross,” Vee says. “You’re worse than me and Kev.”

Ian picks Yev up off of Debbie’s lap, and he and Mickey flip off Vee at the same time, but he knows he’s got a giddy smile on his face and the one on Mickey’s is completely unguarded. He knows she’s right.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [professorwolfjwolf](professorwolfjwolf.tumblr.com).


End file.
